


Birthday

by sparklight



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:59:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3989131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia, Luke and their nineteenth birthday.</p><p>There's also a Death Star involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday

**This is how he passes his nineteenth:**

Coming down from the high of escaping the imperial ships, seeing hyperspace burst around him for the first time, and, currently, trying to track a remote intent on stinging him with harmless little blasts. His - his _father's_ \- lightsaber is probably a little wobblier than it would otherwise be, but he's trying to ignore it.

He's also trying to ignore the ache lodged somewhere behind his breastbone along with the burning stuck in his throat, reaching up to prickle at his eyes. He twitches his lightsaber, manages to block one of the numbing little shocks, breathes. The burning ache hasn't gone away since he saw the corpses... the corpses which really were nothing more than smouldering _skeletons_ , and the image is wedged between his eyes and his brain and he _wants to cry_.

There's not enough _privacy_ on the ship to do that, however, and there's no one here - not even Ben, no matter how kind the old man has been so far - that he feels he can talk to. So he concentrates on the remote in front of him, its wobbly path through the air, and the humming weapon in his hands.

Far better _that_ than the thought that aunt Beru would've let him sleep in today. Far better the next little zap right into his left thigh, spreading a clawing sensation of prickling numbness after it, than the thought that uncle Owen would've let him off his chores, just for today.

Aunt Beru would've smiled and, for once, there wouldn't have been any reluctance as she leaned in, rested her warm, dry hand against his cheek and murmured that he looked even more like his father, then told him to be back in time for dinner. 

He's not going to cry. 

The tears are stuck behind the burning ache, and they'll stay there until a better time - and then Ben staggers. Has to sit down and even as he asks what it is, if Ben is all right, gratefully pushing away the thoughts his brain has been running around with, there's the faintest shiver of an overwhelming _pain_ right outside his awareness.

He doesn't understand it, is _barely_ aware of it, but it's undeniable.

Ben's words puts it into perspective, but he shies away from the screams he can _almost_ feel, vibrating just beyond his skin, hammering against his brain. Nonetheless, even as he complains about how he _can't even see, how am I supposed to fight_ , there's a single thread of resonant pain his mind briefly, eagerly, latches on to. 

It's sharp-edged and violently ice-blue, but staunchly supportive nonetheless, and something in him reaches for it with all the unconscious fierceness of a flower reaching for the sun.

Even as he tries to focus on seeing what can't be seen so he won't hop around like an _idiot_ from being stung by the remote, the burning ache withdraws a little thanks to that fierce blue. It lets him straighten up, let's him ignore that dispersing not-scream and he can almost, _almost_ see the remote.

Enough to block the next few bolts it throws at him, against all possibility.

**This is how she passes her nineteenth:**

Waking up, hands trembling from the lingering effects of the torture, her mind a muddled haze of anger, determination, and pain, and pushing back the urge to scream. Screaming in rage is better than the tears she won't even acknowledge as a possibility. Any moment now, she's sure, her torturers will be back, and she'd rather they catch her angry than crying.

Anger is a shield like her determination is, and she will cry later. 

Later, when her arms aren't swollen and tight where the needles pierced; later, when her vision doesn't double when she turns her head too fast. Later, when her father can cradle her face in his large, gentle hands and kiss her forehead, wishing her a happy birthday. Later, when her mother can wrap her in a hug from behind and then walk her through the garden, voicing her pride in what her daughter has become and will surely yet accomplish.

When the guards come, they don't come with that ominous black mass - the interrogation droid or Vader, there's no difference there - rather they come to take her elsewhere, Vader joining them at the top of the turbolift before they continue on. She wraps her fierceness around herself; she is nineteen now, she is a senator, and she is a _princess of Alderaan_ , and no spindly, claw-like hand on her chin will make her betray the lingering ache of torture that wants to slither through her still.

She cannot, however, still the volcano-burst of _anger_ , fear, _incredulity_ when Tarkin announces the test will continue as scheduled, despite her (misdirection) giving up a location for the rebel base. Vader pulls her back against his armour and its a solid wall of leather, armour and... a faint, hot flame that _almost_ wraps itself around her, but she pulls away from it as the green beam lances out.

She will not rely on her _torturer_ for support. 

The thought is preposterous and is summarily discarded even as that beam shears through space, burns through Alderaan's atmosphere and there's thankfully not a view close enough to see it eat its way from surface to core and cooking everything on the surface before the planet can't take more and simply... disintegrates into debris that seems too small to ever have been part of her _home_.

She will not cry.

She will not _scream_ , though for a brief, aching moment she _thinks she is_ , but no - it's merely a pressure from outside her, pushing against her skull, her eyes, her _heart_ and she cannot---

In the middle of that not-scream, there's a sliver of pained, soothing _green_ that she reaches for without being aware of it. It brushes against her unvoiced pain and while it does not _lessen it_ , she can walk from the viewport room on her own, her back straight, eyes dry and keep a tight rein on her tremble until she is in her cell again, alone.

Her breath is harsh and burns through her throat as she sinks down to lean against the slab that serves as a cot in this angled closet of a cell.

**This is how they pass their nineteenth:**

Having lost _everything_ , both of them, if in different magnitude. Holding back tears, swallowing pain, raw, aching and trembling - but. 

Not _quite_ alone.

Neither knows it, not having the understanding, nor the training, to really connect. They are still close enough - even the whole _galaxy_ wouldn't have kept them apart through such pain - to have touched each other. It's a tenuous connection, new and yet as old as they themselves are.

They will not know it's there, but it will be a source of support, of connection through the next few years. From their first conscious meeting to their first conscious _knowledge_ of each other, and beyond.

They are just now nineteen, they have lost _everything_ , but they are _not_ alone.


End file.
